National Media and Infocommunications Authority (of Hungary)

The National Media and Infocommunications Authority is the independent regulatory body of the Hungarian state responsible for overseeing the media and infocommunications market. Its tasks include ensuring interference-free frequency usage, filtering out non-compliant equipment, and supervising the quality of electronic media and infocommunications services. Its goal is to ensure fair competition, media pluralism, and the enforcement of user interests.

A significant portion of radio airtime must be filled with Hungarian music: at least 35% on linear channels and 50% on community radios. In addition, a quarter of the music played annually must consist of works or recordings released in the past five years. Analyzing several years’ worth of available content would also make previously impossible media research feasible.

The Authority did not have adequate IT tools to enable fast and efficient monitoring of these rules or to make media assets searchable. According to the Authority’s expectations, the system must be able to process the daily airtime of up to 1,000 channels within 24 hours.

A system was created that, after processing the Authority’s reference music database, is capable of recognizing music played on channels registered in the Authority’s system. Based on this, the system automatically generates a broadcast log, which can be exported in multiple formats. This has enabled further analysis and research opportunities.

The system runs 24/7, distributing the processing of configured channels across multiple machines if needed.

The system’s functions and settings are accessible and manageable via a web-based user interface.